The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) recently released updates and announcements for appraisers regarding the usage of the Electronic Appraisal Delivery (EAD) Portal, while addressing any challenges appraisers or FHA-approved mortgages may be having, according to a release from FHA.
As for the resolving of common challenges when using the portal, the FHA says the following review points can save time in processing delays and avoiding EAD system lockouts.
“Keep Your FHA Connection user ID up-to-date,” FHA says. “EAD portal users must have and maintain a valid user ID for the FHA Connection (FHAC) system to access the EAD portal. If you have not signed on to FHAC for 90 days, your user ID will be terminated and must be reinstated by your organization’s FHAC Application Coordinator. If your FHAC user ID expires, you will not be able to access the EAD portal until your user ID is reinstated. Your EAD portal user ID and password are different than your FHAC user ID and password.”
The FHA also pointed out the top five EAD portal hard stop error messages that users receive, along with potential causes and resolutions to clear the errors. Over 65 percent of first-time submission errors come from these hard stop error messages that usually indicates that the FHA case number is missing or it’s provided in an invalid format.
“An FHA appraisal may not be transmitted from the appraiser to the mortgagee without an FHA case number. The FHA case number must be entered on the appraisal report in a 10-character format (three numeric digits, followed by a dash, and then followed by seven numeric digits; example: 123-4589034),” the FHA announcement said.
“The FHA case number must be entered by the appraiser above the file number to correspond with the Extensible Markup Language (XML. In most appraisal software packages, this is formatted as an additional file number. The FHA case number may also appear in a similar place on other pages of the report, but it is not a requirement. The loan product type identifier (e.g., “703”) is not part of the case number. Do not include “FHA #” or similar verbiage in front of the case number.”
If the FHA case number on appraisal does not match Document File, ensure the FHA case number within the EAD portal Document File is correct and ensure the appraiser entered the correct FHA case number on the appraisal report.
If the FHA case number on appraisal is not assigned to lender, for a transferred case, ensure the transfer is complete in FHA Connection before uploading the appraisal to the EAD portal. Ensure the FHA case number within the EAD portal Document File is correct and ensure the FHA case number in the appraisal report is correct.
If the appraisal data is in an invalid format, ensure the appraiser’s software is updated with the most current version. FHA only accepts appraisals in the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) formats with embedded PDF, as created by the appraiser.